


as they make their way

by purplelaterade



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, More Than That Less Than 5k
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-06 23:03:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4239987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplelaterade/pseuds/purplelaterade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All of time and the universe strapped around his wrist, and he chooses to sit here with her, working alongside her to save her, to get her back where she belongs. // or, five times Jemma and Fitz meet across the universe</p>
            </blockquote>





	as they make their way

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pocketfullof](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pocketfullof/gifts).



> Written for pocketfulof for the "More Than That Less Than 5K" exchange. I kind of took your "time travel" and "amnesia" ideas and then smashed them together and added a couple aliens and turned them into something unrecognizable, but hopefully you enjoy it anyway!
> 
> Also, in my head this is loosely set in the Doctor Who-verse, but you don't actually need to know anything about Doctor Who - I borrowed/adapted a couple ideas, but they should make enough sense within the context of the story without any prior knowledge.

**one.**

He finds her for her first time in a crowded marketplace, calling out her name while surrounded by azure-skinned merchants twice their height haggling with shoppers that have too many eyes or hair the color of mashed peas (or sometimes both). Before she can react he’s pulling her into a tight hug, her face crushed against his shoulder. There’s a distinct scent to his skin, tangy and acrid, that she recognizes immediately. 

“You’re human,” she says in surprise, after he pulls back and she gets a proper look at him. Blond hair, eyes bluer than the merchants running the stalls, normal amounts of all his body parts. He looks at her like she’s grown a second head, though she wouldn’t look out of place here if she did, probably.

“‘Course I’m human,” he laughs, slightly bewildered.

Her breath catches– when was the last time she heard a Scottish accent, or even any British accent but her own? She’s not sure she remembers. Maybe she’s written it down somewhere.

“You’re a time traveler,” she adds, because the scent clinging to his skin is the same one that clings to her own. The one that never quite fades, even when you scrub at it.

“Is there a reason we’re stating the obvious today, Jemma?” His hands twitch at his sides; for a moment she thinks he’s going to reach for her, but he doesn’t. Around one wrist is a leather strap, bigger than a watch and with no obvious markings that she can see. “C’mon, we don’t know how much time we have, we’ve got to give it a go-”

“You….” She shakes her head, trying to clear it. “I’m sorry, but have we met?”

The look on his face, previously hovering between joy and fondness, shifts to concern. “What do you mean, ‘have we.…’” He trails off, eyes widening suddenly. “Maybe we haven’t,” he breathes, and there’s a sadness to his voice. He runs a hand over his face, looks around. “Are you hungry?”

* * *

His name is Fitz. This he tells her between mouthfuls of purple fruit (he bartered several of them off a merchant in exchange for what Jemma understood to be some sort of battery, giving half to her as he led them off to a quiet corner of the square). He confirms that he’s a time traveler, like her, showing her the device strapped to his wrist he calls a “vortex manipulator.”

“Made this one myself. A bit crude, but it gets the job done,” he says, flipping it open to show her how it works with a bit of pride. She looks on in awe – controlled time and space travel, the very thing she’d been working toward before the accident, apparently possible with little more than the pushing of a button or two. Before she’s entirely aware of what she’s doing, she reaches for it tentatively, though she stops short of touching it. “You don’t know me yet, do you,” Fitz adds, changing topics abruptly. It’s not a question.

Jemma shakes her head. “Afraid not.”

“Time travel.” He laughs almost bitterly and shakes his head. “Everything’s still yet to happen for you, I guess.”

“Are we friends?” Jemma asks. “In… in the future. My future, anyway.”

“Yeah.”

“Are we…” she starts, because there’s something in the way he looks at her, but she doesn’t finish. Some things are better left to the future. “Can that get me home?” she asks instead, switching topics as she touches a finger to his leather wrist strap. “It’s just, I had this accident, and-”

“I know,” he interrupts gently. “You told me – well, _will_ tell me. But no, it can’t. Not yet.”

“Oh.” She’d known better than to hope, but she feels a pit of disappointment settle in her stomach regardless.

“We’re….” Fitz sighs, frustrated. “It’s something to do with your biometrics fluctuating thanks to your accident. The vortex manipulator can’t get a lock on you. We’ve been working on it every time we meet, trying to stabilize you and recalibrate the manipulator - it’s hard because we don’t always meet up in the right order, and with the unpredictable nature of your jumps, it sometimes takes a while to track you down. We’re close, though. When I saw you, I actually thought it had worked, but you must’ve jumped a split-second before we tested it.”

“But couldn’t we test it now? I’m here.”

He can’t quite look at her. “Best not. I wish we could, but the stabilizer formula is the real key, and I’m fresh out. Plus….”

“Time travel,” she finishes for him, and he nods. “A causal loop. If it works, and I go home, then I never help you fix it, and we never have this conversation, and I never use the vortex manipulator to go home.”

“Exactly. But, hey.” He reaches hesitantly for her hand, squeezes it. “Don’t worry. I’ll find you – the right you. And then we’re going to fix it. Together.”

She thinks she believes him.

* * *

**two.**

“So how many times have we met, now?”

“Two,” Jemma says absently, scribbling furiously. When they’d bumped into each other in Zloda earlier that day, Fitz had suggested she write down everything she could remember about the specifics of the project she was working on. Of course, they needed two copies, and there was no predicting when she’d jump again, so speed was of the utmost importance. She hoped he’d be able to puzzle out her shorthand.

“Only two?” Fitz sounds surprised at this.

“Yes. Why? How many times have you met me?”

“Ten.”

“Really?” It’s Jemma’s turn to be surprised. That explained, then, the ease with which he approached her, the familiarity with her and her working process he seemed to have. She wishes she felt some of that same familiarity, though the relief she felt when she spotted him strolling along the bank of the Neman had been palpable. Familiar faces had become something of a novelty these past months.

“Yeah. And you’ve been the only one with a copy of the project notes the entire time. So I figured, if you made two copies, we could each have one and I could try to work on it in between meetings. Of course, it hadn’t occurred to me that you might not have actually made the notes yet,” he adds apologetically, as Jemma shakes out her cramping hand, flexing her fingers.

“Not to worry,” she says, returning to her drawing of the structural formula of glutamic acid. “It’s distracting me from the fact that home is about seventeen thousand kilometers away, and sure, I’ve missed five years, but what’s five years really in the grand scheme of things? I could get a plane, Fitz. I could get a plane and go home.”

“Except you can’t,” he reminds her gently. “The causal loop-”

“Yes, I know all about causal loops, thank you,” Jemma snaps. Fitz falls silent and she sighs. _The only friend I have right now in all the universe and my best chance of getting home, and I’m snapping at him. Well done, Jemma._ “I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. Even disregarding the causal loop, there’s no guarantee I’ll even make it home before I jump again. I could jump off the plane, or out of the middle of the street. There’s no point in going back until I’m stabilized.”

“And as soon as you’re stabilized, we’ll be able to use the vortex manipulator to get you home.” He smiles at her reassuringly, and she smiles back. “We’re close, Jemma. The… the later you and I, we’re almost there. And these notes,” he taps on the paper, “will help.” He grabs a blank sheet and a pen. “I’ll start copying what you’ve got down already, in case you jump again. Better to have a partial set than none at all, probably.”

She pauses a moment to watch him copying out her notes in a messy scrawl, the late summer sun behind him, lighting up his curls as the rays fall across his head and shoulders. All of time and the universe strapped around his wrist, and he chooses to sit here with her, working alongside her to save her, to get her back where she belongs. She’s not sure if it’s the sun or the thought that’s making her feel warm.

* * *

**three.**

“So where’s home for you, Fitz? Or when?”

Fitz looks up from where the vortex manipulator is lying partially dismantled. “Where’s this coming from all of a sudden?”

It’s a rare long spell between jumps, and not in the least bit unwelcome. They’ve been aboard the _Vaisseau Spatial de_ _France_ for five days now, and have spent the majority of that time in a floating Parisian café. The café isn’t anything close to the lab Jemma wishes they had, but it’s quiet and the double caf coffee helps them work late into the night, until the café closes and the artificial city lighting dims and it’s too dark to see what they’re doing.

“Suppose I’m just curious,” she says. “You seem to know so much about me, but I don’t feel like I know anything about you, really.”

He furrows his brow in confusion. “I don’t know anything about you, either. Aside from the fact that you had an accident and now you play a mean game of hide and seek.”

He’s only on their third meeting (she’s on their sixth; she’s learned to establish timelines early on during each meeting, and has taken to keeping a record in her notebook to minimize confusion), so she shouldn’t be surprised that he doesn’t know all the details; still, she feels like it’s something that should’ve come up, and it would definitely be good for him to know if he’s going to keep working on this with her. “Well then, a trade,” she offers. “Your story for mine.”

“Ladies first.” He raises his eyebrows at her.

She could argue – she’d asked first, after all – but she doesn’t. “I’m a scientist. I was working for this science and tech organization called SHIELD, and-”

“Did you say SHIELD?” Fitz interrupts.

“Yeah. Why?”

He’s silent for a moment, looking at her. Eventually, he shakes his head. “Never mind. Keep going.”

Jemma decides not to press the issue. “They brought me in on this project. They’d found this… big rock. Tall, sort of thin. Never found out where it came from – didn’t have the clearance level. Anyway, it was giving off this temporal energy. They thought maybe they could use it to facilitate some sort of time travel. By the time they brought me in they’d already figured out how to send small objects a few seconds forward in time – pens, coins, that sort of thing – and wanted to progress to living organisms. I was brought in to monitor vitals, compare their biometrics before and after the process, that sort of thing.”

“So what happened?”

“I wish I knew. One moment I’m checking the monitors, the next someone’s yelling something about the containment field and then suddenly, I’m not in the lab anymore. Or even on Earth, as far as I know. Never did come across anyone who could confirm it, but there were two suns, so it’s a logical conclusion to come to. Then a few hours later, I was somewhere else. Didn’t have a clue why it kept happening until you told me the vortex manipulator couldn’t get a lock on me because my biometrics were fluctuating and I realized that they must have been fluctuating temporally, causing the jumps. Which is why we’re working on the stabilizer.” She looks at Fitz thoughtfully. “Too bad you can’t just go back, prevent the accident from occurring in the first place.”

“Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure that would-”

“Violate the laws of time travel, create a loop, yes, yes, I know. We've been over the concept several times.” She takes a long drink from her cup of coffee. “Who would know? Who even monitors those things? The Time Police?”

“Time Agents, actually,” Fitz says, almost offhand.

Startled, Jemma gives him a look. “You’re not….”

“Me? Nah.” He falls quiet; for a moment, Jemma wonders if he’s going to speak again. “The fifty-first century,” Fitz says eventually.

“What?”

“You asked when home was. Technically, it’s the fifty-first century. Or, was.”

“Why ‘was?’”

He taps the vortex manipulator. “Got this, don’t I? Whole universe is my home now.” His laugh isn’t quite genuine.

“Fitz….” Jemma’s hand hovers for a moment, hesitant, before reaching to rest it on top his, the way he’d done to her several times before. He looks surprised at the gesture, but doesn’t pull away. They sit that way for a few minutes; Fitz turns his hand to curl his fingers around hers. When he speaks again, he doesn’t look at her.

“Have I told you yet that I made my vortex manipulator myself?” he asks. She nods before realizing he probably can’t see it and makes a sound of affirmation instead. “Well, only Time Agents are actually allowed to have vortex manipulators. Strictly speaking, mine isn’t legal and I’m probably a fugitive. Technically.”

“Oh, Fitz!” Of all the words she would’ve used to describe Fitz, ‘fugitive’ was never one that crossed her mind. “Won’t they be after you? Are you in any danger?”

He shakes his head. “I’m not worth it to them, honestly. A skinny engineer with a handmade vortex manipulator? They’re not bothered. They’re probably amazed it functions at all and didn’t blow up in my face first time out, to be honest. So long as I keep my head down and don’t make any messes for them to clean up, they’ll probably leave me be.”

“No wonder you’re always harping on about the laws of time travel,” Jemma says. “You don’t want to draw their attention.”

“I generally try to avoid it, yes. Not about to risk landing back home, either. Rather not give SHIELD an easy target.”

She startles. “Wait, SHIELD?” she asks. “As in, _my_ SHIELD?”

“Possibly.” Fitz shrugs. “Whatever it used to be, it’s where the Time Agents work from now. Which is why I was so surprised when you mentioned it. Thought maybe they’d finally sent someone after me. But you don’t strike me as someone who could keep up a lie like that for very long.”

It’s an accurate assessment, but she’s not sure whether or not to be offended. She changes the topic. “But… don’t you have people to go back to? Family?”

“There was my mum, but she died before I left. That’s it, really.”

“Must be lonely,” she murmurs.

“Yeah, well,” he deflects. His thumb moves idly over the back of her hand. “Less so lately.”

* * *

**four.**

They’ve worked through the night in a cramped inn room, the only light coming from a couple candles on a desk, trying to complete the stabilizer before Jemma jumps again – a process made more difficult by the fact that the jumps happen at random. It’s a deadline that neither of them can see nor predict, and it’s got them both on edge.

“All I’m wondering is whether you calibrated it correctly!”

She waves a small device in Fitz’s direction as he squints at the vortex manipulator in the dim light, furiously trying to replace the last few tiny screws.

“I can assure you, I did,” he says tersely.

“Because we only get one shot this time – we won’t know if it worked or not until either I jump or we get the vortex manipulator to lock on-”

“I know, Jemma, we’ve been over it several times now.”

“Are you ready?” She poises the device, loaded with a dose of the stabilizer, over her left wrist. Her heart is pounding. If this works, she’ll be home in moments.

“Just about.” Fitz doesn’t look up, focused on his work. “Go ahead and use it – better to do it now.”

Jemma takes a deep breath and then pushes the button, wincing as it sends a sharp, quick pain through her wrist. She waits. Nothing happens, but she can’t tell if it’s the good nothing or the bad nothing. She doesn’t feel any different, but she hadn’t felt any different after the accident, either.

“Well?” Fitz prompts.

“I don’t know. I can’t tell. I don’t feel any different.” She flexes her fingers, rubs her slightly sore wrist.

“Just got to get this started back up-” he holds up the vortex manipulator, “-and then we’ll be able to see. But hey, you haven’t jumped yet, that’s a good sign, right?”

Jemma freezes as a memory comes back, unbidden.  _When I saw you, I actually thought it had worked, but you must’ve jumped a split-second before we tested it._

“No,” she says, voice barely above a whisper, “but I’m about to.”

“What do you-”

“The first time we met.” She fights to keep her voice steady. “Or, well, the first time I met you. It was… it must’ve been right after this. You told me we’d been about to test it, to see if the stabilizer worked, but before we could, I jumped.”

Fitz shakes his head, starts to load the extra dose of stabilizer into the device. “No, no. It’ll be fine. Probably the dose just wasn’t quite strong enough, here-”

Jemma crosses the room quickly, grabbing the vortex manipulator while Fitz is distracted and plugging in the spacetime coordinates for the market where she met him for the first time. She sets it back in place just as he turns, holding up the second stabilizer dose.

“Here.” He holds it out to her, but she stays in place, arms at her sides. “Take it, Jemma.” There’s a pleading note to his voice. She clenches and unclenches her fists, shaking her head. “Come on, we don’t have time to discuss this.”

“The laws of time travel, Fitz-” she begins. The irony of the fact that she’s now the one saying those words doesn’t escape her.

“I don’t _care_ , we’ve worked too hard on this, and who knows how long until I find you again and we get another chance-”

“-I’m not letting you get arrested because of me, that’s ridiculous-”

“-I’ll be fine, maybe they won’t even notice, and I’ve learned how to shake a tail over the years-”

“-I’m not going to do this just so I can get home a little sooner, you’re my best friend in the universe!”

“You’re more than that, Jemma."

The words knock the air out of her, like a punch to the stomach, and she gapes at him, trying to remember how to breathe. She should’ve known; should’ve remembered the way he’d looked at her in the marketplace all that time ago, the question she’d almost asked. While she’s processing, Fitz gets her with the second stabilizer dose, then grabs the vortex manipulator in one hand and Jemma’s hand in the other.

“Fitz!” She pulls desperately, trying to free herself.

He pushes the button.

Her hand slips from his grasp.

The room disappears.

* * *

**five.**

It takes a moment for her to get her bearings, as it always does.

The alley she’s landed in is fairly dark, but from what she can see of the sky, it’s daytime. It extends out in either direction, but she can hear what sounds like the commotion of a busy city street or something coming from one end, so she follows the sound out – no matter the planet, hanging around dark alleys is rarely ideal.

She steps from the alleyway onto a street, and the crowd sweeps her into a dazzling square, full of stalls and bustling with activity.

“Starcharts, starcharts here!”

“Teliov fruits, dirt cheap!”

“Medicines for what ails you! We’ve got GH-three-twenty-five in stock!”

The sun glints off gilded statues and sparkling banners; she squints against it until her eyes adjust. When they do, she gasps.

She’s back in the marketplace.

She looks around frantically. Not five meters away is the stall where Fitz bartered for the purple fruits they ate – so, she’s probably landed in roughly the same time period as the last time she was there, at least. She locates the corner where they sat together, but there’s no one there. So she’s too late, or possibly too early.

But as she scans the crowd, she sees two familiar figures weaving their way toward the fruit stand.

Quickly, she ducks out of sight, concealing herself behind a statue that gives her a good view of the corner she knows they’ll be heading to while preventing her from being seen by them. She doesn’t remember seeing herself, so it must not have happened, and she’ll have to keep it that way.

It feels like she waits for ages. The conversation didn’t last for more than an hour or so before she jumped, she knows, but the anticipation combined with being hungry and tired and a little too warm make time seem as if it’s going slower than usual. Finally, she watches herself shimmer out of existence – “so that’s what it looks like” – leaving Fitz behind. He gets to his feet and flips open the vortex manipulator.

“Wait!” Panic claws at her. Someone nearby turns to look at her, all three eyes pointed in her direction, but she ignores him. He’s on the other side of the square, and if he activates it before she can get his attention…. She bolts in his direction, waving an arm in the air. “Fitz!” He doesn’t look up from keying in coordinates. “Fitz!” She tries again, desperate, but the market is loud and crowded and she’s sure she’s going to be too late…

…until, miraculously, he looks up. She’s pretty sure he says something, though she can’t hear it above the din around her, but it doesn’t matter because a few more strides and she’s crashing into him, throwing her arms around his neck.

“Jemma?” he asks, bewildered, as she pulls away. “Didn’t you just-”

“It’s me, Fitz,” she tells him. “Not past me. _Now_ me.”

He stares at her. “But… how did you… you jumped, you must’ve-”

“I don’t think I did,” Jemma says slowly, as things piece together in her mind. “I think I must’ve let go a split-second too late, or else the proximity to you was still enough that I was caught up in the transport, but landed in the wrong spot. And if that’s the case, that means-”

“-the stabilizer worked,” Fitz finishes, a smile slowly spreading over his face. Jemma’s mouth stretches to mirror his. “We did it.”

“Together,” she adds.

They’re quiet for a minute, letting it sink in. Fitz offers her his arm. “Are you ready?”

“Ready,” she confirms, looping her arm around his. On a whim, she stretches up to press a kiss to his cheek; he suppresses a smile. “You know,” she says as he programs in the coordinates to her lab, trying to sound casual, “it’s hardly the fifty-first century, but the twenty-first century is quite nice too, if you wanted to stay a while, maybe do a little sightseeing.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And I’m sure that my SHIELD would be thrilled if you wanted to lend your talents for a bit – though I’d maybe hide the vortex manipulator from them. I don’t think your SHIELD would be too happy if they got their hands on it.”

“Probably not.”

“And…” she begins, hesitantly, “there’s quite a few upscale restaurants in the area that might be nice for a date. Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

“Of course.” A flush creeps across his face, but he’s smiling. He snaps the vortex manipulator shut, one finger hovering above the button. “So. Home, then?” he asks.

Jemma nods. “Home.”


End file.
